


Breath and Shadow

by thisprettywren



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Breathplay, Community: kink_bingo, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-23
Updated: 2011-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-21 17:04:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisprettywren/pseuds/thisprettywren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"<em>John</em>." The grin that splits Sherlock's face is razor-sharp. "If it weren't dangerous, I wouldn't need <em>you</em>."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breath and Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/10038.html?thread=51921718#t51921718) at sherlockbbc_fic and the breathplay square in [kink_bingo](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/); see my card [here](http://thisprettywren.livejournal.com/34137.html).
> 
> Thanks to [misanthropyray](misanthropyray.livejournal.com) and [Santheum](santheum.deviantart.com) for the Britpick/beta, and [Ivy Blossom](ivyblossom.livejournal.com) for the readthrough. Any remaining errors are entirely my own and usually committed in the face of loud protests.

"Well, John, there are options. I can go find someone else to do this for me, without you there–"

John makes a noise of protest, which Sherlock pointedly ignores.

"Or, I can go find someone else to do this _to_. Also without you there."

There's a long pause while John considers the odds of talking Sherlock out of this.

"You're going to hurt yourself," he says finally.

"No, I'm really not. That's rather what you're here for, isn't it? You're a doctor. But I suppose, if you'd rather I find someone else, I'm sure I can." He unfolds from the sofa, swinging his feet to the floor and standing in one fluid movement. "There are lots of people who'd be willing to choke a man like me, if I look in the right places. Or perhaps a few willing to choke _me_ , specifically. There was that forger I helped convict, he's recently–"

"Fine, fine," John says resignedly, and Sherlock stops pulling on his shoes and straightens to meet his gaze. "Just so we're clear on the important points. You do realise this is incredibly dangerous, and that you're completely insane."

" _John_." The grin that splits Sherlock's face is razor-sharp. "If it weren't dangerous, I wouldn't need _you_."

* * *

In the end, Sherlock gets exactly what he wants: a chance to investigate the choking death of a man found alone in his flat the week before. Lestrade had brought in a suspect, but her alibi was rock solid for the twenty minutes preceding the man's death, and there was some doubt whether the man could have lived even that long in the position in which he'd been placed. The victim was a boxer, and Sherlock estimated that they were of nearly equivalent physical strength, so he'd be an ideal test subject.

"You're sure this isn't just because you want to know what it feels like?" John asks as he finishes winding the rope into a neat coil and sets the EMT scissors on the table beside Sherlock's mobile, both within easy reach of his left hand.

"I've been choked before," Sherlock says, and there's a ripple of impatience beneath his words. "What I need to know is whether the pull of the arms in this position--"

"Fine." John really doesn't want to think about this any more than strictly necessary. "Give me your hands."

John wraps the first piece of rope around and around Sherlock's wrists, binding them together. The next piece of rope goes around his arms, just above his elbows— “ _Tighter, John, you need to cinch them in enough to rotate the shoulder blades_ ”—until Sherlock agrees that it's a reasonable facsimile of the way the victim had been bound. John loops the end of the rope between Sherlock's arms and ties them off in a neat knot.

"Right," he says. "Sit."

Sherlock sits carefully in the kitchen chair selected for the purpose, his joined arms stuck out in front of him at an awkward angle. John uses gaffer tape to secure him to the chair, just enough to keep him from hurting himself when his body's inevitable panic response kicks in.

"You're okay?" he asks when he's done, watching Sherlock's face closely. "If you want me to stop, all you have to do is say so. And if you _can't_ say so and it looks like–"

"Yes, John," Sherlock bites back in response. "You'll cut the rope. I understand, now do get on with it before you, our suspect, and I all die of old age."

John sighs and moves behind him, guides Sherlock's arms up until his hands are pointed toward the ceiling. The ropes are tight enough that Sherlock has to twist his head a bit to manoeuvre it between his upper arms. Sherlock bends his elbows to bring his wrists down behind his neck, and John watches the shifting of his shoulder muscles beneath the fabric of his shirt, their unaccustomed slide as he tries to shift his arms into position with their motion so restrained.

John grabs the final piece of rope, places it against the spot where Sherlock's shoulder joins his neck, loops it around.

"Twice. Two loops around the victim's throat."

John doesn't even bother nodding (Sherlock can't see him, in any case), just focuses on the tension cording along the lines of Sherlock's neck as he loops the rope around a second time, weaves its ends loosely into the ropes encircling Sherlock's wrists.

"Pull them in as far as you can," he urges, and Sherlock draws his arms in until his hands almost touch the back of his neck, his muscles quivering slightly with the strain.

"There, John," he says, and there's a minute catch of breath in his throat at the words. "That's the spot."

John draws the rope taut and ties it carefully. He makes the knot big and easily-accessible, one swift tug to unravel the whole thing. He steps back and moves around to stand in front of Sherlock, scissors at the ready.

Sherlock relaxes his arms immediately, of course, just to feel the range of motion, to see how far he has before the rope around his throat will cut off his air. The answer is: not far. John watches the lines of a frown flash across Sherlock's forehead as he realises just how much effort it's going to take him to hold the position necessary to keep his airway open.

Sherlock flexes his arms again and the ropes give him enough slack to take a deep lungful of air. "Oh," he says, sounding genuinely surprised.

" _Oh_ indeed," John echoes, hefting the scissors pointedly in Sherlock's field of vision. "Let me know when you're tired of this."

* * *

Sherlock actually manages quite a long time, finding a delicate balance between air supply and muscular endurance, holding his breath for nearly a minute at a time to allow himself a chance to rest his arms. At first he tries to talk--showing off, John thinks wryly--but he soon gives up that endeavour, focusing instead on pulling steady breaths in through his nose, nostrils flaring.

There's something almost elegant about the way this leaves him exposed, John thinks; something satisfyingly neat about the way the long lines of Sherlock's chest could be laid bare if John just reached forward to undo the buttons on his shirt. He has a sudden vision of Sherlock stretched out before him, long and pale, made vulnerable by the pull of his own body against itself while John explores the planes and angles of his skin. It catches John by surprise, and he shakes his head slightly against it. _Really not the point_ , he tells himself firmly.

Sherlock is just starting to struggle in earnest when the timer passes the twenty minute mark. John moves to cut the ropes away and Sherlock hisses, "No, I need to see what the window," and doesn't manage the _would be_ before the fine tremors running through his arms become outright shakes and he's forced to relax them, cutting off his air again. His face and neck have gone a deep red and he's shifting in the seat, trying to find a new angle, better leverage.

"You _are_ going to have to let me cut you loose eventually, you do realise that," John says when Sherlock manages to ease the tension on his neck again and a bit of the trapped blood drains from his face.

Sherlock doesn't respond. He just rolls his eyes upward to glare at John, sucking deep breaths through his nose, chest heaving.

Getting less air to his lungs means he's getting less to his muscles, too, and by the thirty minute mark Sherlock's scarcely able to draw his arms in far enough to relieve the tension for the time it takes to suck in two hectic breaths. He has his eyes squeezed tightly shut, the veins standing in raised lines along his temples. There's a fine sheen of sweat sticking his curls to the back of his neck, and John can see it beginning to pool around his collarbones through the open neck of shirt.

John is surprised that none of the ropes seem to be cutting too deeply or acting as a serious impediment to Sherlock's circulation, the reddening of his complexion notwithstanding. He watches Sherlock closely, his eyes flicking from his face to his neck. He tells himself that he's just watching for signs that this has gone on for too long, that Sherlock needs to stop; and yes, there is that, but John would also have to admit to a fascination at the way Sherlock's body is adapting to its new constraints, at the way its long lines are shifting.

 _Really not the time._ John thinks determinedly about consequences and Hippocrates and deliberately slows his own breathing as he hovers an arm's-length away, tapping the scissors against his palm.

In one sense, Sherlock is doing fine; in another, he really isn't. John can tell Sherlock is trying to hide what this is doing to him, but John knows the signs, can see the flutter of agitation running through Sherlock's chest, the occasional panicked jerks of his muscles, the way he's fighting against the tape holding him in the chair. His brain might be telling him he's in no real danger, but even Sherlock can't logic away the need for oxygen. It's six minutes later when Sherlock finally opens his eyes again and lets his mouth fall open as though about to speak. John sees his face crumple into an expression of genuine panic at the realisation that he truly doesn't have the air for it.

John doesn't wait, one practised hand reaching around to pull free the knot binding Sherlock's wrists to his neck and loosening the looped ropes with one steady motion, the other hand supporting Sherlock's arms while he pulls them, shaking and unsteady, up and forward into his lap. Sherlock slumps forward in the seat and draws air into his chest in ragged gasps. When John moves around him again to cut through the ropes binding his arms together, Sherlock quirks one cheek up in what might have been a smile, looks at John with eyes that are unfocused and distant.

John is trying very hard not to think of other contexts in which Sherlock's face might look like that, other times when the the harsh lines of his face might fall slack, when those sharp eyes might lose their focus and take on that hazy–

He clears his throat. "The alibi doesn't hold, then," he says mildly, reaching out a hand to tip Sherlock's chin upward so he can examine the freshly-raw skin on his neck. Sherlock doesn't resist the slight pressure, letting his eyes slide closed as he tilts his head back. John touches the fingertips of his left hand lightly against the pale skin of Sherlock's throat. Abrasions and incipient bruises there, but no permanent damage. Good.

It seems to take Sherlock a moment to register that John has spoken, his eyebrows drawing together in irritation at his lapse. "What?" His head falls abruptly forward when John removes his hand. "Oh. No. No, it doesn't, apparently." His voice is low and rough, and he winces at a cough that forces its way up his raw throat. "Call Lestrade and tell him so, will you?" Another breathy cough, and John holds out the scissors so Sherlock can cut himself free of the tape. Sherlock fumbles with them briefly, scowling down at his fingers, which are red and swollen. "I need to go make some notes."

John huffs an incredulous laugh. "Oh, sure. I'll just phone up the Yard and explain this, shall I?"

Sherlock doesn't answer and John quirks an eyebrow up at him as he stands, steadies himself against the table, finds his equilibrium. John watches him walk toward his bedroom, already beginning to regain some semblance of grace in his limbs.

"Idiot," John mutters, not sure whether he means Sherlock or himself, and pulls out his phone.

* * *

It turns out they were right about the strangulation case. The suspect is in custody two days later.

They're less correct about the next one.

Sherlock disappears on a Tuesday; it's Friday before John gets the call that he's been found, in the utility room of an unused office park halfway across the city.

"They've given him something," Lestrade says. His voice, on the other end of the line, is heavy with exasperation. "We don't know what, and we can't get anyone near enough to check without him shouting bloody murder."

"I'll hurry," John says, already pulling on his coat.

When he gets out of the cab, there's an unfamiliar officer waiting for him. "Come on," he says, "in here," but John wouldn't have needed the direction; he can hear Sherlock shouting from the second they enter the building.

Lestrade is standing in the doorway of the utility room, hands in his pockets. He looks at John with raised eyebrows. "He's all yours," he says. "We'll have the paramedics sedate him, if necessary, but--"

"John!" John turns at the sound of Sherlock's voice. He's just visible against the far wall, mostly hidden by the bulk of the furnace. " _John_."

"I'm here." John shrugs over his shoulder at Lestrade and begins picking his way across the room, stepping carefully to avoid tripping over the debris littering the floor.

"I'm tired of this," Sherlock says, his voice crackling with anxiety. He tilts his head to the side and looks up at John from his position on the floor, rolling his shoulders awkwardly; his arms appear to be trapped behind him. "Get me out." John crouches down beside him. There's blood on the side of his face, the whites of his eyes gone red around pupils that are far smaller than they should be. "But it's-- it's not a rope."

"What?" John peers around to see that Sherlock's wrists have been tethered to an exposed pipe with cable ties. They're digging into his skin deeply enough that there's dried blood staining his hands, patches of it on the walls and floor.

"You said to let you know when I was tired of this. So." He huffs a breath of frustration along his nose, narrowing his eyes. "Tired of this. _Now_."

"Right. Yes, okay," John says in his steadiest voice, pulling his utility knife out of his pocket and unfolding the blade carefully. Sherlock's eyes fix on it, flare wide, settle. "I need you to lean forward and hold very still so I don't cut you."

"You won't cut me," Sherlock mutters, "just get me out," but he complies, bending as far forward as he can to give John room to work. John slices through the cable tie in one clean motion and Sherlock almost tips forward, wincing as his arms fall free.

"There we are, then," John says, holding one of Sherlock's wrists up to inspect the damage. He'd struggled and the cuts are deep, but they'll heal. He parts Sherlock's hair gingerly, inspecting the wound there. "You're going to be fine. Let's just get you out of here."

"If it's not dangerous anymore," Sherlock whispers conspiratorially, leaning in toward John and pitching his voice low, "I think it might be time to call the police."

* * *

After that, there's something subtly different in the air in the flat. There’s a certain sense of unease around the place, something tenuous in the space between their two bodies. John has the uncomfortable impression that he's being watched. He tries to ignore it, tries to convince himself that he’s imagining things. Sherlock is always watching him, he rationalises; it’s what Sherlock _does_.

Sherlock leaves hospital with instructions to keep his wrists bandaged for a week; he loses patience with them within six hours. John thinks he might well be trying to find novel ways to render them useless; he’s constantly tearing them or soaking them through with chemicals, needing to have them redone. If John didn’t know better, he’d think Sherlock was doing it on purpose.

On the third day, John comes home to find Sherlock sitting on the sofa, deliberately unwinding the gauze strip wrapped around his left wrist.

“Stop that,” he snaps, and to his surprise Sherlock does, tilting his head and raising those pale eyes to meet John’s.

Sherlock blinks twice before speaking. “They itch.”

“They’re healing.” John drops the shopping on the kitchen table and moves to stand at Sherlock’s side. Sherlock tilts his chin higher, regarding John out of the corner of his eye. “If you don’t leave them alone, they’ll scar.” John perches beside Sherlock on the sofa and Sherlock almost idly turns his palm upward, extending his hand so John can examine his wrist. Since it’s half-undone already John finishes peeling the bandage away and brushes his fingertips lightly along the edge of the wound, checking its progress. Sherlock’s fingers twitch but he doesn’t pull away; he leans sideways against the back of the sofa, eyes fixed on John’s fingers as they rewrap the gauze, fasten it carefully.

“Those will do for the rest of the day,” John says, standing and moving back toward the kitchen, “if you can refrain from doing anything too drastic in the meantime.” He sets his face in his best doctor glare to punctuate his point and turns to direct it at Sherlock.

What he sees when he does so pulls him up short.

Sherlock is still sprawled on the sofa. His eyes have slid closed and he’s holding his wrist just above his chest, the fingers of his other hand ghosting along the skin where John’s touch had been just a moment before. A fine shiver runs across Sherlock’s shoulders under the dressing gown and John feels an echoing tremor make its way along his own spine, his breath catching in his throat.

He must have made some sound because Sherlock’s eyes snap open and settle immediately on John’s face. There’s a dark shadow behind the light irises, the expression there almost accusatory. “Problem?” His face has gone angular, the softness John had seen there just a moment before forgotten.

“Sherlock,” John says, hating the hesitation he can hear in his own voice, and can’t think what to say next. Sherlock huffs an exasperated sigh and snakes one long arm under the sofa, withdraws his violin and bow, still glaring in John’s direction. John swallows, goes the safest route. “Be careful with that.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes to the ceiling and drops the bow back to the floor, swings the violin to his chin and begins to pluck haphazardly at the strings.

John takes a moment to focus on the in-out of his breath, steadying it by force of will, before turning his attention back to the shopping. He watches his own fingers grasping tins of beans, his ears full of discordant pizzicato and the pounding of his own heart.

* * *

John manages to convince himself that, if he just ignores it, Sherlock will eventually stop playing whatever this latest game is.

John keeps catching him insinuating himself into John’s space, but as soon as John makes a move to acknowledge it Sherlock immediately withdraws. Married to his work and all that, John reminds himself resolutely.

Still, though.

Once he comes home from a particularly long day at the surgery to find Sherlock sitting on the floor beside his armchair, bowing away at his violin (and of course it’s the violin, it always is, that tormented avatar of Sherlock’s inner workings).

Sherlock doesn’t look up at him as he enters but he doesn’t move, either, not even when John slumps heavily into his chair and sets the morning newspaper across his lap. “Don’t mind me,” he says to Sherlock’s left ear, and Sherlock rather spectacularly _doesn’t_. He stays right exactly where he is, cross-legged on the floor, head bent low over the body of the instrument. There’s something sweet about the idea that Sherlock might have been waiting for him like that, but the sweetness morphs into something that tugs at the base of John’s spine and he pushes the thought away.

He tries to read instead, but the sounds Sherlock is making with his violin are positively demented and it’s impossible to do anything like concentrate. Finally John just sets his hand on top of the dark curls and Sherlock freezes, cocks his head to peer at him from the corners of narrowed eyes.

“Look,” John says, keeping his voice carefully neutral. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but do you think you could— give it a rest, maybe? Just for a bit?”

There’s a long pause during which John can almost imagine Sherlock is pushing his head up into the palm of John’s hand, then an abrupt flurry of motion as Sherlock unfolds himself from the floor. “I’m just trying to _think_ ,” he says impatiently, already halfway across the room. John doesn’t have time to formulate a response before the door to Sherlock’s bedroom slams shut.

He hasn’t taken his violin with him.

John’s seen him put it away enough times that he knows how to make it all fit back in the case again; he unscrews the shouder rest from the body with fingers that seem determined to shake. This has to be some sort of experiment, something Sherlock’s doing to test John’s reactions, or—

Or.

His mind simply shorts out at that point in the supposition, refuses to follow that train of thought any further. _Don’t be stupid, Watson_ , he tells himself, and if he finds himself thinking about Sherlock’s bowed head—the long line of his neck disappearing under that dark spill of curls—when he takes himself in hand later that night, he’ll never admit it.

* * *

One morning, John comes downstairs to find Sherlock once again stretched out on the sofa. He’s still dressed in the previous day’s trousers and shirt but his feet are bare, long toes curling around the curve of the armrest, hands folded and resting neatly over his lower abdomen. His left sleeve is rolled up and he has four—John hisses in a sharp breath through his nose—patches plastered against the pale skin of his forearm.

Sherlock doesn’t look up at John’s entrance. Doesn’t look up, in fact, when John calls his name.

_Can’t be sleeping, not with that many—_

Even from that distance John can see the rapid flutter of Sherlock’s pulse in his throat.

_Oh, god._

John is at his side before he realises he’s crossed the room, drops to his knee and aligns his fingers along the pulse point of Sherlock’s throat. His palm brushes against the front of Sherlock’s windpipe and Sherlock tips his head back minutely, arching into the touch, rasping his stubble against the calloused skin of John’s palm.

For just a moment, it’s perfectly clear in John’s mind: he’ll press the heel of his hand against the long column of Sherlock’s throat and those pale eyes will snap open. His mouth, too; he can see it gasping, open and inviting, _Sherlock_ open to him, and John will call his bluff, will lean in and he’ll _take_ —

He pulls his hand away, and Sherlock does open his eyes then, drawing his brows down in a scowl.

“Something the matter?” he asks, and John has to move back rapidly to avoid being hit with Sherlock’s legs as he swings them over the side of the sofa, pushes himself to standing.

“Just… just checking,” John says, hoping the words sound steadier than he feels. He’s sure Sherlock must be able to hear the sharp edge of his breath, but if he does he gives no indication.

“Tea,” Sherlock says decisively, and John pushes himself to his feet.

“Right,” he says. “Yes. I was just about to—“

Sherlock’s eyes are on his face, the corner of his mouth curling up into something almost like a smile. “No,” he says thoughtfully, “I’ll make it. You look done in—rough night?”

“Yeah,” John lies. He knows it’s a feeble attempt but Sherlock’s already turning his attention to the sink, filling the kettle. John wants nothing more than to flee back upstairs to his room, put some distance between them; his knees feel like water when he folds into his armchair instead.

 _A game, yes,_ he decides, but one he isn’t sure Sherlock even knows he’s playing.

* * *

There’s a case. A kidnapping. It drags on for days, and for a while it looks hopeless, but they do find the victim eventually.

Or, rather, they find the victim’s body.

John recognises the smell immediately when they open the door; he can see from Sherlock’s face that he does, too. The room is ominously dark in contrast to the dazzle of the afternoon sunlight.

There’s a stunned silence that holds until Lestrade clears his throat. “Right,” he says, “We’re going to need forensics in here. Donovan, get on the wire—“

John feels it a moment before it happens. Sherlock snaps like a coil wound too tight—everyone on edge from days of coffee standing in for sleep, enough of them that even Sherlock’s eyes are red-rimmed, what patience he has worn razor-thin—and he’s transformed and snarling, face twisted in anger, shouting at Lestrade that if only they’d _listened to him_ , if they’d been less wilfully _stupid_ —

There’s motion around them but John doesn’t have time for it, reaches out a steady hand to grab Sherlock’s wrist, feeling the heat of Sherlock’s skin under his fingertips. “Sherlock,” he says, and though the pulse continues to hammer along the narrow corridor of skin-bone-muscle in his grasp and he can feel the tension still buzzing through him, Sherlock stills. “ _Sherlock_.”

Sherlock turns on John, then, eyes cold and shadowed in fury, stepping in close to loom over him. He only has a few inches on John, really, but he knows how to draw himself up, creating distance between them in the only way John’s hold on his wrist will allow.

John squares his shoulders, doesn’t cede his ground, gazes up at him steadily. “They did their best,” he says, and apart from a twitch of the muscles in his jaw Sherlock doesn’t move. “You— you did everything you could.”

There’s a moment of absolute stillness, John’s entire universe narrowed down to the few inches of air between his eyes and Sherlock’s. Then a shadow runs across Sherlock’s face and he pulls away, jerking his arm out of John’s grasp, and John lets him, doesn’t call after him as he turns and stalks from the room without a word. John closes his eyes and listens to the sound of Sherlock’s feet skimming down the stairs, the slam of the door to the street, and he’s gone.

John lets out a lungful of air he hadn’t meant to hold. There’s a stir of movement around him, the detectives going back to their work. He feels the heavy weight of a hand on his shoulder and when he opens his eyes he sees Donovan’s face, a sympathetic quirk playing across her lips.

“Come on,” she says. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

* * *

She doesn’t take him home immediately. They stop off first at a cafe John’s never been to but in which Sally seems thoroughly at home. She smiles at the owner and guides John to a corner booth, sighing contentedly as she slides into the seat opposite him.

She waits for John to settle in his seat and lean his forearms on the table before speaking. “Bird watching would be less work.”

“Not a lot of birds in London, unless you count the pigeons.”

“Dog-watching, then.” She picks up her fork and begins to play with it, running her fingers along the smooth metal of the tines. “Look,” she says, not meeting John’s eyes. “I was wrong to warn you off him.”

“No, you really weren’t,” he says mildly. “He’s incorrigible.”

Sally chuckles. “That’s one way of putting it. I don’t know if you know, but when I first started with the Yard, he and I—“ Her gaze softens and she breaks off, sliding her eyes up the wall to John’s left. “Well, I was young and stupid. Too young and stupid to see I wasn’t just barking up the wrong tree, I was in the wrong bloody forest. And I still don’t know what _he_ was thinking.”

Her face splits into a genuine grin, and John feels an answering smile stretch his own lips. “I really can’t picture that. The two of you.”

She almost groans, but there’s humour in her tone. “Oh God, please don’t, it was _awful_.” Her face grows more serious as she continues. “I mean, it started off okay—I don’t have to tell you what it’s like, the way you just get sort of… caught up—but then he started _pushing_. No, no, nothing like that,” she says quickly, seeing the frown creasing John’s forehead. “That would have been fine. No, I mean— he wanted something else, and I couldn’t give it to him, and it all just sort of spiralled away from me. I get enough of that on the job, you know? Little boys thinking they can goad me. Not really something I seek out in my personal life.”

Sherlock had introduced her as an old friend. “I suppose not,” John says. His mind is reeling, a flush of excitement he isn’t sure he quite understands making its way up his throat. He hopes she can’t see it in the low light of the cafe.

Her fingers tighten briefly around the handle of the fork, and she huffs out a laugh. “For a while I thought maybe he was doing the same to you, pushing you into something. But it’s been obvious for a while, and after tonight— well. I think you’re up for it. Whatever it is you’re doing with him, it’s… it’s working.” She signals the waiter for menus. “So I suppose I just wanted to—“ She pauses, considering her words.

“Give us your blessing?” John supplies, hoping it sounds like a joke. There’s something dark and thrilling just beginning to stir at the base of his spine.

Sally laughs. “God, no, you poor bastard. Never that. Wish you luck, more like.”

“Thanks.” John says it lightly, hoping she can hear how much he means it. Then, more seriously: “Dinner’s on me, I think, this time.”

Sally beams at him, a bright flash of teeth that breaks through what’s left of the tension in her manner. “I figured it would be. And if it all goes south—”

John answers her grin with his own. “If I need a fishing holiday, I’ll ring you.” The waiter appears and he takes both proffered menus, holds one out to Sally across the table. “First order of business, though, is food.”

 _And then_ , says something dark and eager in the back of his thoughts, all through the rest of the meal and the long drive back to Baker Street. _And then, and then, and then._

* * *

John pauses at the top of the stairs, leaning his head against the closed door to 221b and pulling in deep, steadying breaths through his nostrils. He wouldn’t call what he has a _plan_ , exactly, or even _expectations_ , but he feels it with a certainty learned through long nights on rotation, in London and other, more distant places. Something’s coming.

The flat itself is dark when he pushes the door open. Dark, but not empty; John isn’t surprised when he flicks on the light to to find Sherlock sitting on the sofa, elbows balanced on his knees, head slumped forward, long fingers twined in his hair. He tips his chin up to peer at John from beneath the fringe of his eyelashes, his features drawn tight with strain.

There’s a long moment while they look at each other, reading what there is to see in each other’s faces.

It’s John who breaks the silence. “You tried,” he says, offering the only consolation he can. “And you’ll catch him. You know you will.”

Sherlock’s mouth twists in a wry grimace. “Today we failed to find a kidnapper. Tomorrow, we’ll start looking for a murderer. Hard to see a win in that.” He almost laughs, and his irises darken, grow sharper. His voice drops and there’s something unfocused around the edges of his words. “And tonight, it seems, I’m between cases.”

Something in Sherlock’s voice draws him so that John doesn’t remember the steps it takes him to cross the room. He moves until Sherlock is leaning back on the sofa and John is standing over him, left hand braced against the sofa back and the other in Sherlock’s hair. He’s looking down and Sherlock’s looking up and the question in those pale eyes is unmistakable.

John brings his right knee up on the sofa cushion and Sherlock’s exhale shakes out of his chest. He closes his eyes altogether when John bends so their foreheads are touching.

“I thought you didn’t—“ John begins, bites off the rest of his words when Sherlock shakes his head.

“I don’t, usually.” Sherlock’s voice is a low whisper, his breath hot against the side of John’s neck. “It’s— in my head, it’s not, I can’t—“ His eyes snap open, and they’re so close to John’s they practically fill his vision. He brings one hand up and grasps John’s left hand, bringing it forward to rest against the the base of his throat, the pad of John’s thumb resting in the hollow between Sherlock’s collarbones. John pulls his other knee up so he’s kneeling on the sofa, sitting across Sherlock’s thighs.

“It went so quiet,” Sherlock whispers, and John can scarcely breathe himself. “John. _Please_.”

John shifts, pulls up and back with his right hand until the back of Sherlock’s head is resting against the top the sofa back. He runs his left hand along the delicate architecture of Sherlock’s throat, the sharp lines of tendons. He can feel the pull of the muscle when Sherlock swallows; Sherlock’s hands are gripping his thighs.

“Okay,” John says, his mouth impossibly dry. “Okay.”

Sherlock smiles and lets his eyes slide closed, runs his hands down the fronts of John’s thighs, nudges at his knees until John understands that he wants John to kneel on his upturned palms. _Christ_. They shift until Sherlock hums his satisfaction.

John can feel Sherlock’s pulse hammering under his fingers, can hear his own in his ears.

“Okay,” he says again, and then his focus narrows, everything sharpening down to the contact between their skin, the growing heat of the connection between muscle and tendon and bone.

When John releases his grip Sherlock coughs and gasps for a moment before rasping up at him, “More,” and John feels unexpectedly, inexplicably proud of him.

Then everything narrows again, John easing up on the pressure long enough to allow a thick hectic inhale, prolonging it. Sherlock’s eyelids flare with the rush of oxygen, growing dark again as John increases the pressure again. He can feel Sherlock’s muscles clenching beneath him, beginning to shake, and there’s that mouth opening in its perfect round O and John leans forward and covers it with his own, exploring with his tongue, able to feel the way the long muscles of Sherlock’s throat are straining, inside and out.

When he pulls away, finally, they’re both gasping. John sits back on his heels and lets Sherlock lean his forehead against his collarbone, right over his scar. He cradles Sherlock’s jaw with one hand and runs the other through the dark curls, soothing pressure against his scalp.

Neither of them speak for a long time.

It’s Sherlock, this time, who breaks the silence. “Yes,” he breathes, the word itself just a hiss of air against the fabric of John’s shirt.

There’s tugging at his knees and John realises he’s still kneeling on Sherlock’s hands; he shifts, releasing them, and Sherlock wraps one around the back of John’s neck and presses the heel of his right hand to John’s groin where his arousal is trapped by the fabric of his trousers. John’s breath catches as he feels himself jump under the sudden pressure.

“Sherlock,” he says, “you don’t have to— ah.” He can still see Sherlock’s thin shoulders heaving beneath his shirt and somehow he’s still got John’s zip down one-handed, is insinuating his hand into the space in the front of John’s y-fronts.

“Don’t.” In Sherlock's voice, it sounds like a question. “Let me do this, John.” He wraps his hand around the base of John’s erection and pulls, twisting his long fingers, and _oh_.

John’s nod is entirely breathless.

It doesn’t take long, with the image of Sherlock pinned beneath him still playing on the backs of John’s eyelids, with the heat of his throat still seared on the skin of John’s palm, before he’s gasping and shuddering in Sherlock’s grip. Sherlock has his free hand cupped around the back of John’s head, drawing him in, and when John’s spent Sherlock uses it to pull him down so they somehow end sprawled together on the narrow sofa, breathing the same air.

John rouses himself enough to run one hand down the uneven topography of Sherlock’s rib, wrap his fingers around the blade of his hip. “Sherlock,” he says tentatively. It’s an offering.

Sherlock doesn’t even open his eyes, just shakes his head. “No,” he says. “It’s perfect.” Then, with a soft smile: “ _Quiet_.”

It sounds like a promise.


End file.
